Tim Oren's Due Diligence

Bayes Theorem Tutorial in Graphics

Here's a nicely done introduction to Bayesian reasoning, for those more inclined to visual learning versus formulas. I'm going to steal this approach next time I have to explain it to a non-engineer. As a bonus, it includes a clear explanation of the Monty Hall problem, a classic probability paradox. Via Ole Eichhorn.

The Roving Eye: Clamatology, A Bio-Garage In Silicon Valley, Mickey The Crony Capitalist

I checked, it's not April 1st. This report on a use of prehistoric mollusk shells to estimate temperatures appears to be genuine. With a worldwide sample size of 26 such shells, it's not going to change science overnight, but it could prove informative in time. It also has multiple linguistic possibilities, leading to the informative but punishing comment thread on the post. Bonus points for the "shopped" illo, at least for those who follow AGW insider ball.

Waiting for VCs, or DHS, to knock. Outside of the probably excessive attention being paid to the amateur DIYBio movement, there are some serious folks working in minimal facilities. Rob Carlson documents one such, in an undisclosed garage in Silicon Valley. Whoever is behind it is attempting serious work - anti-cancer compound screening - but is lying low due in part to credible fears - documented by Carlson - of finding not venture capitalists but armed agents from DHS at their doors. There are legitimate issues of WMD proliferation here - Carlson himself has credibly proposed micro-brewing as a reasonable comparable to the potential scope and scale of low-rent bio-production. But an uncoordinated, antagonistic approach by bureaucrats toting guns is not going to lead to any sort of containment. It's more likely to cause the same swift proliferation of enabling knowledge as that sparked by the misguided Federal policies on cryptographic technology in the '90s.

The thug in the mouse suit. Back as far as the 60s, there's been a feeling that ugliness sometimes lurks behind the squeaky-clean, family-oriented facade at Disney. Maggie's Farm documents some of the recent questionable deeds of the mouse. You can choose from using the Federal government to extract fees from foreign visitors to help promote Disney parks, to suppressing politically uncomfortable content about 9/11, to getting a non-profit that exposed an ineffective Disney education product thrown out of its offices. And of course we all know about the 'copyright event horizon', ensuring that nothing created since the first appearance of Mickey will ever go out of copyright.

The Roving Eye: Keynes v. Hayek Crib, Genomics Learning Curve, Ghosts Of The Last Bubble

DKos Win! Not the place I'd normally go for economic enlightenment, but there's a very nicely done mini-tutorial on macro in the guise of a concordance to the Keynes - Hayek throw down video that I've featured before. Via the Instaprof.

All Your Base Are Belong... A report on new gene sequencing product releases at a recent conference provides plenty of evidence that the Carlson curves are still running. Plenty of novel designs based on new science, given some clear evidence that that there are multiple possible paths ahead, some with interesting implications on the speed and reliability of sequencing, as well as diversification of the sequencing market into niches. Still lots of technological uncertainty here; plenty of potential for today's leaders to miss the next generation. If you've got a win, cash it in!

Green gone to rust. What happens when the subsidies run out? Some remnants of the last time around the statist track. Ah, but this time, it'll be different! Sure it will! (PDF)

Obligatory eye candy. Night-time volcanic eruption at the Pink Tentacle blog.

Brains and Beta

Researchers at Caltech has linked the fear of losing money to a specific structure in the brain, the amygdala. Subjects in which it was damaged were willing to essentially disregard downside risks. The amygdala is linked to emotional responses of all kind of events, including threats, and it makes sense that something that might have evolved to mediate life and death fight/flight decisions is invoked in making the fear/greed tradeoff in investing.

It would be interesting to also know the neurological involvement in gain seeking. But while Caltech gets started on that, perhaps someone should do profiles on amygdala function in - let's say - VCs, day traders, hedgies, and Fannie Mae executives.

(Via Tyler Cowen.)

The Roving Eye: Cool Technology Edition

Just in case you missed these:

25nm achieved. The Intel/Micro Flash memory JV announced the launch of a 25 nanometer fab, which will double storage densities. SSDs getting ever larger and, since many such are connected via USB 2.0, making that spec look ever more aged.

'Big Dog' robot procurement. DARPA lets a $25m contract to Boston Dynamics to create a deployable version of its Big Dog prototype walking robot. Lots of speculation on futures, some a bit out there, at the first link.

Spray-on glass? It's claimed that Germany's Nanopool has developed a spray-on glass coating material that creates a film a few dozen molecules thick, radically altering surface properties, including on living materials. Pretty cool if it pans out. Let's hope they've got a safe way to apply it.

The right turn in space. I spend enough time trashing Obama's economic incompetence that it's only fair to throw a bone when he does something right. Such is the decision to get NASA out of the rocketship building business. NASA was great back in the day, when it was new and had a clear charter, but like all bureaucracies it's turned into a haven for pork barrel projects and long term employment for functionaries. If we want space flight to be sustainable, not a taxpayer funded stunt, it's time to turn over the construction projects to private concerns that worry about things like cost learning curves, and minimizing the manpower and capital used for building and operations.

A Fascinating Geographical Pattern

One of those fun 'found while looking for something else' items:

(Original source here - PDF).

At a time where everything from economic activity to religious beliefs seems to sorting out along a red/blue state divide, here's something quite different. While there don't seem to be any tests for statistical significance associated with this graphic, it sure looks like US public library usage falls into an east-west pattern of stripes across the country. The only basis I can imagine is that this still follows the East to West migrations of the 19th and early 20th century. Assuming that's correct, it's a cultural pattern that's persisted in spite of all the economic and politically induced mobility of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Fascinating!

Climategate in Plain English

Apparently it takes a Finnish television station to put a narrative to the Climategate disclosures, since our own MSM unaccountably seems to have checked out on the story. The link is to the English transcript; I'm sure the original video is quite interesting should you happen to speak Finnish.

Akbar and Jeff's Climate Modeling Hut

Know how to run a spreadsheet? Want to learn how Mann, the CRU, et. al. did it?

Iowahawk doffs his jester's cap, picks up his keyboard and displays his mad day-job skilz, to show us how to make a hockey stick chart on our own. And for the advanced students, some 'exercises for the reader' to show how shaky that conclusion may be.

If you care at all about the AGW debate, this is the post to read this weekend. Even if you just read it as a gloss on the jargon, it's well worth the 15 minutes to do so.

Or All The Seas Without Oysters

One of the fun things about about chasing AGW links, as a balance to all the heated rhetoric and wretched code, is wandering into corners of science I would never otherwise encounter. Today's find is a study by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute investigating the effects of increased CO2 levels on shell-building sea creatures. (Some fraction of CO2 dissolves into water, creating the relatively weak carbonic acid, which nonetheless has the potential to screw up deposition of shells built of calcium, which is normally dissolved by acids.)

The study used gaseous CO2 concentrations well beyond those currently observed to see what might happen if we keep dumping it into the atmosphere. It seems that some of the critters did in fact have trouble growing their shells under extreme conditions, but others liked it just fine and even grew heavier shells. Us crab and lobster munchers are in good shape, you oyster and uni fans, maybe not so much.

In a way, this isn't very surprising. It's well known that most organisms have collections of genes that are normally repressed and inactive, but might become active depending on conditions in the environment or internal to the individual. The critters we eat for seafood dinner have been around in more-or-less similar forms for much longer than Homo saps. Their evolutionary history could very easily include atmospheric and climatic conditions well beyond our current experience, and they may have genes evolved during those periods sitting around ready to become active at need. Might be some interesting research possibilities there when sequencing gets even cheaper.

(Found via Open Markets.)

A Good Layman's Analysis of the ClimateGate Scandal

I was in the process of writing an analysis of the disclosures from a general systems point of view, but someone beat me to it, which is just great. The second half of the post discusses why the disclosed data issues are so damaging to the modeling enterprise, the first half puts the scientific, economic and political issues into context. Very nicely done, and credible from my POV, though colonists may have to stumble over some UK-isms. (What, for instance, is "a hiding to nothing"?) (*) It's posted by the pseudonymous "Pedant General", who means he/she can pull rank on me.

(Thanks to SDA.)

Update: Here's another good piece at the WSJ from an MIT meteorology professor. Generally skeptical, but focuses on both what is generally accepted by both sides, and on the issues with modeling rather than just the data quality problems. A sample:

The main statement publicized after the last IPCC Scientific Assessment two years ago was that it was likely that most of the warming since 1957 (a point of anomalous cold) was due to man. This claim was based on the weak argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some forcing, and that the only forcing that they could think of was man. Even this argument assumes that these models adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is, such naturally occurring cycles as El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, etc.

(Via Maggie's Farm.)

Update 2: And another good list of modeling issues from Coyote. Meanwhile, these guys have the code from a prominent climate model and are starting to examine it and decide on a platform to bring it up. The Army of Davids is beginning to assemble; we're going to end up with transparency one way or another.

*(Belated update: Apparently a "hiding to nothing" is a colloquial way of saying something along the lines of "you're doomed". Derivation unknown, but possibly from "getting their hides thrashed until there's nothing left" or "hiding in a nonexistent spot, and being, therefore, failed fugitives". Thanks to 'Nortius Maximus' for the "English" lesson.)